Today I have a tongue-in-cheek parenting survey for you, dear reader.
My daughter (13) and son (12) begged me to let them go over to a friend’s house to play XBox and watch Disney shows like Good Luck Charlie and Dog with a Blog (which, I guess, is a thing dogs can do now).
Is it wrong that I mainly said yes in order to keep the vultures from swarming over the snacks I was bringing into the house, so that I could eat the first of the snacks?
Or is it pragmatic and wise, when dealing with ravenous teenagers?
I have been doing well on my diet and exercise plan. Today, I am sore from my first day out of my support boot on the foot that’s still healing. So I don’t feel like exercising. I also felt like eating a few more lumpia than I should. (Actually, I don’t know if diet and lumpia EVER go together.)
I wanted to write a bit on two story ideas, but the words aren’t flowing quite right and the ideas aren’t communicating the way I want. So I wrote two pages and stopped there.
My wife and I were going to go out and celebrate Mother’s Day early, on a rare dinner date. We both realized neither of us feel like getting out the door today.
There’s also that level of Candy Crush that has me stumped.
So I think today has become a useless “relax and play Warcraft” day. And I’m ok with that. It’s Saturday. It’s been a long week, and next week is going to be even busier than this one.
I went over the music for tomorrow’s church service.
I learned all about my wife’s FarmVille farms.
I hugged two of my boys close as we watched Despicable Me.
And I let the teenage daughter and almost-teenage son escape to go play with friends.
This A to Z blog challenge is really kicking my butt. Still, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Two more days and… several entries until it’s over!
On top of that, I had a splendid distraction this weekend. My brother, my sister-in-law, and their two sons came out from Chicago to visit my family for a couple days. It’s a roughly eight-hour drive with two small children under 3, so… kudos to them for their bravery!
Friday night, we went to eat Chinese food at a nearby restaurant. We turned around for one moment, and their older child prepared himself for battle using the ancient technique of “crab rangoon war paint.”
But they can never take… our CRAB RANGOON!
We survived the dinner (although our youngest scattered enough fried rice to feed an army), and then we had a nice trip to the park at sunset.
The kids played some basketball with their uncle, and then everyone meandered over to the swings. My youngest and my brother’s oldest both made a beeline for swinging children, as if they wanted to get kicked. Disaster was averted. At some point, my brother commented on how parenting at this age is pretty much 24-hour suicide watch. He has a dry sense of humor that gets me every time.
I like how this one turned out.
Saturday involved a pleasant visit catching up and sharing terrifying parent stories (many of which involved poop), followed by ice cream at Dairy Queen.
Prior to the visit, we discussed plans or lack thereof. My brother mentioned our visit in 2007, and how he and my parents had a variety of plans to make the most of the time. I don’t remember it, but we must have shot down a good many of those plans based on a desire for “nothing complicated.” My brother was single at the time, and admitted over the phone, “I had no idea why you guys were so set on simple plans.”
Now, with two small children, he laughed and said, “I completely understand. I had to learn the hard way, I guess.”
So we had simple plans, and it was enough. We enjoyed a lovely dinner with a friend from the Wordsowers writers’ group here in Omaha, and then they visited our church service on Sunday morning before heading back to Chicago.
The Bee and the wee cousinHeap of childrenSuprised girl
Boys being insane
My brother asked, “Do you agree with this statement? ‘Having children is both the most rewarding and most difficult experience in my life.'”
Of course I agreed. So has every other parent he’s asked.
We had a great time, and enjoyed sharing in each other’s joys and difficulties as parents. Challenging, yes… but one we gladly accept.
Time flies when you’re having fun… or raising kids.
I recall looking down at a crying pink mass of baby as a brand new dad, unable to fully grasp all the changes about to take place, wondering how much I didn’t know, unsure of how I would become the father my daughter deserved.
It’s a natural reflex… but it still hits right in the feels.
Then, in a hesitant and uncertain effort to help keep Deborah still while the nurses cleaned her up, I gingerly took hold of her hand. And she wrapped her tiny finger nubs around one of mine and held tight. And her cries started to quiet down.
That was over thirteen years ago. “Almost fourteen,” Deb would say.
She soon became a big sister to our first son, Jonathan. When we discussed baby names for boys, I thought of David and Jonathan in the Bible – the friendship and closeness they shared. While I know that a parent is not always able to be their child’s friend instead of disciplinarian, I still focused on the hope that my son and I will enjoy a healthy relationship as he grows into maturity.
A few years after Jonathan, Justin was born, his name meaning “Righteous” and “Justice.” And two years ago, we welcomed Judah into our family, whose name means “Praise.”
Life easily becomes a blur of day-by-day responsibilities. Exhaustion sets in, and by the end of a busy day, it’s too easy to get caught up getting the kids to bed and catching a breather before going to sleep to face the next day. Individual days often go by slowly, working at the office or in the home, taking care of dinner and the children’s needs, trying to carve out family time, finishing all the chores and responsibilities, and ushering kids to bed.
But the years flash by when we’re not paying attention.
About a week ago, Deborah was playing Rock Band 3 and some of the various Guitar Hero games. And I discovered she had switched over to Hard difficulty. The jump from Medium to Hard is significant as it incorporates more buttons to press, more notes to hit, and all at a faster pace. Yet she was performing songs smoothly, something of which she never used to be capable.
We played some songs together, challenging each other to see who could get the best performance. She kept up and beat me several times. Then we switched to Street Fighter, and once again I was surprised to find that she put up a fight. In fact, unless I was playing one of the two characters I’m best with, I was really working hard to win.
The bear is one of my favorites if I’m just messing around… because, come on. A BEAR.
If you’re not familiar with the old-school Street Fighter games at the arcade, whenever a second player puts in a quarter and starts a game against the current player, a message pops up with a shout saying, “Here comes a new challenger!”
That’s what I was hearing in my head as Deborah defeated me a few times.
I can’t wait to get out of my cast and take her on in basketball, which has rapidly become her other favorite game.
Jonathan is no slouch, either. But his strengths are more mechanical. He loves building things, whether with Legos or with various electronics he takes apart (with supervision). Yes, he loves destruction too. He regularly surprises us with new constructs, and briefs us on the multiple special features and components he builds in to each one.
His favorite video game is Plants Vs. Zombies, but he still has that problem-solving mechanical eye when he watches me play. I was working my way through the new Tomb Raider, and at several points where I would be stuck considering how exactly to solve a puzzle, he walked in, looked it over, and pointed out the solution as if it was the most natural and obvious answer. Humbling, for sure.
Justin’s biggest strength seems to be living up to his name, as the family “Fairness Police.” Maybe it’s middle-child-syndrome rearing its ugly head, but Justin definitely protests any imbalance in chores or in rewards. He balances that with giving the most hugs ever (like constantly), so I guess it all works out.
Even Justin has some mad skills with his favorite games. We recently loaded Sonic Dash onto the iPad, and Justin started playing it with glee. It took me several days to get to the point where I could even match his high score, and honestly, that’s probably because I used the coins you earn in-game to upgrade scoring abilities. Justin hasn’t played in a bit; I’m afraid to see what he’ll do with the new powers in game.
Judah is still pretty young, so I’m not sure what skills he’s going to demonstrate. He sure loves to dance and sing to music – fitting based on his name and based on his parents’ musical abilities. He absolutely loves to sit at the piano with me and play (read: pound) notes… but that’s probably true of any two-year-old.
I don’t yet know what to expect from him. However bittersweet it may be, I know that the years will go by in a flash, and in no time, he’ll be showing us where his strengths lie. I want to say I can’t wait to see it, but “almost fourteen” years have flown by already.
I can wait and take it slow, one challenge at a time.
It’s Spring now, officially. That calls for some getting outside and special activities!
Of course, I’m on crutches post-surgery, so that limits our options a bit. But there’s always an excuse to give up, stay home, and do nothing. As tempting as that might be, sometimes convalescing means getting out and enjoying fresh air.
We packed up the kids into the van and drove off for parts unknown – at least to us.
Yes, it’s “Spring,” but it was also a chilly 34 degrees yesterday afternoon when we went out. (I was planning on posting this all day today, but I spent quite a while with a two year old wrapped around my face, so I was further delayed – not such a bad thing!)
It was snowing in the morning yesterday, thankfully none of that stuck around long. Three more potential excuses shot down! “I don’t want to be out in the cold, I don’t want to be in snow in a cast, I don’t want to slip on ice while on crutches…”
We headed through the base after some errands, and I snapped a couple pics of the Offutt parade ground. Most of my co-workers won’t care, because they’ve been to Offutt at one point or another. But many of you will never have that chance. So here’s a pic:
The line of trees along the road next to the parade grounds. I need to get a picture in Autumn!
There are several houses on base that have stood for over a century, dating back to the early days of Fort Crook. At the parade ground pavilion, there are pictures of Army infantry and cavalry formations from the 1900s, with these houses in the background.
One of the houses near the parade grounds – over 100 years old!
My wife loves the architecture, so we snapped a couple pics.
More Offutt history – now converted to visiting officer quarters.
From there, we headed off base and got onto the highway, heading east into Iowa. Jami’s family had a tradition of stopping at the border of new states and taking a picture at the “Welcome to (fill-in-the-blank)” sign. Unfortunately, we crossed a bridge on Highway 80 over the Missouri River, so there was no chance to pull over and snap a picture. But here’s Judah enjoying the ride:
Judah smiles at his big sister as she entertains him on our trip.
Going fifteen minutes down the highway into a neighboring state might seem like no big deal, but for our family, it’s a new concept. We spent eight years on the small-ish tropical island of Okinawa. The freedom to drive around the States is almost overwhelming in comparison!
We took note of a few places to visit in the near future, enjoyed some Blizzards from DQ, and checked out songs from the new Passion and United albums. (I may have also taken advantage of technology to claim a bunch of gold from auctions in World of Warcraft.)
Once we got home, Jonathan went to his friend’s house, and the rest of us walked (crutched) down to the park in the bowl behind our house. It’s enough of a walk that our neighbor even sent out her daughter to tell me I’m crazy for crutching around that far.
Deborah has been excited about playing basketball with her friends, so we took the opportunity to check out her skills.
Deb practicing three-pointers.
Judah got out and ran around, and Justin rode his scooter around the court.
Justin on his Cars scooter
I even took a couple shots. Ok, I took several. It’s surprising how much you need your feet for support.
Our dachshund, Grasshopper, enjoying the outing
I chased Judah a bit – even on crutches, I can catch him on cement, but he beats me on the grass.
Off with a dash, Judah makes his escape.
Dinner time arrived, so we trudged back up the hill to end a very busy day. It may not have felt like warm spring and sunshine, but it was still a great excuse to get outside.
The hill as we headed back home… coming down was easier!
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. Ephesians 5:1 NASB
You can’t stop it from happening… or can you?
Not surprisingly, I picture my own children when reading this. I have a daughter who is very much a “Daddy’s Girl” and has adopted a lot of my sense of humor (along with some other less desirable traits). I have an 11 year old son who is picking up many of the same interests in hobbies. I have a 7 year old who is probably as frenetic and crazy as I was at his age. And I have an almost-2 year old who lights up with joy every time his mother and I play music. My keyboard is one of his favorite toys.
You don’t have to be a parent to get the picture of the mother duck followed closely by her ducklings. Children naturally watch and then follow the example of their parents.
Growing is something else children naturally do.
I recall holding my daughter as a newborn. She fit between my elbow and my hand. Now she’s almost as tall as me. Try as I might, I haven’t found a way to stop time and keep her or my other children in that seemingly perfect sweet innocent state of childhood.
Healthy children will grow.
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. – Hebrews 5:12-14 NASB
The writer of Hebrews implies something here. It’s possible for us as Christians and children of God to stop growing, to stay in that infant state. If we do not exercise what God has put in us, if we do not work it out and put it into practice, we’ll remain little children, needing to be fed instead of feeding, needing to be helped instead of helping.
Though the parent in me would love to stop my kids from growing up, I know they must grow. And so must I.
Wherever I am right now, however “tall” I am by God’s measuring stick, I can’t let myself remain there. I want to keep growing, keep reaching for more. I know I don’t want to come back next year and find the mark has not moved higher on the wall.
We’ve been playing a tabletop role-playing game for Family Game Night.
Tonight we took a break to level up the characters.
I also took some time to level up my son’s interest in the game.
Justin (7 years old) has a rogue character named Clayface, and he seems to be enjoying himself. The problem is, all Clayface ever really has to do is shoot his crossbow at everyone’s face.
When I ask, “Justin, what do you want to do?” that’s always the answer.
“I shoot the goblin in the face.”
“I shoot my crossbow at the spider. In the face.”
“I want to shoot my crossbow RIGHT IN HIS FACE!”
So I thought, how am I going to get Justin to think more about what different things he might want to do?
That’s when I thought of these guys:
Justin is an absolute nut about Angry Birds.
And this is a silly family game where anything can be allowed.
So why not give Clayface the rogue a slingshot and a sack of birds to use as ammunition?
For the next session, I get to hand Justin the sheet below. It may not get him sneaking around and role-playing a rogue, but it will get him thinking about what he wants to do in the game, even if it turns into, “I fire Little Red into the goblin’s face!”
Some of the best parts of tabletop role-playing are the creative ways players solve or avoid (or outright ignore) the problems and troubles the DM/GM/Storyteller sends their way.
One of the other best parts is coming up with those surprises to stump your players.
This afternoon, I sat down with the wife and kids to continue our D&D campaign. They’ve been steered (mostly by their characters’ needs and not by railroad tracks) toward tracking down a manipulative vampire clan. Members of the clan operate behind the scenes all over the realm, and it’s the heroes’ job to root these villains out.
They’re starting to travel all around the region, which gives me the chance to use a variety of settings.
Tabletop version of plug-and-play.
I was going to use my copy of Dungeon Delve, with its pre-made adventures. But that would require getting tiles together, and I was looking for something with less prep required.
Good thing I had an unopened pack of GameMastery map tiles: Mines.
It’s 18 tiles that are made to mix and match, so that you can create a variety of tunnels to explore.
Events in the game led the wife’s and kids’ characters to a nearby mine overrun by goblins somehow connected to the clan. There are surviving miners… probably. Rescue is the main goal… as far as they know.
The intrepid heroes are ready to move in, and since it’s a dark mine, I lay out one Mines map tile at a time as they advance through the mine. I fanned out the tiles, blank backs up, and let the kids and Jami pick which one would be next. Then I came up with a brief answer for why that section of tunnel mattered. Sometimes it was tracks in the dungeon. Sometimes it was signs of battle to hint at what they might soon face. Once it was a vein of gleaming ore.
But even before all of that, right off the bat, their creative juices are flowing. I start off with a Dungeoneering check, as Beastly Tiger notices something amiss in the entrance of the tunnel. The goblins have prepared a rock-fall trap for unwanted guests. The kids discuss how best to deal with this, when I tell them their characters hear goblins chatting ahead in the tunnel.
The children gave me a pleasant surprise by remembering the idea of “holding action.” Basically, that means a character is ready to do a certain action if something specific happens. “I hold my axe up, ready to chop at the first goblin that walks through the door,” for example.
Deborah decides Beastly Tiger would make some noise to get the goblins’ attention, then she prepares to chuck a rock at the cords that will trigger the trap. Justin likes this plan, and declares that Clayface has his crossbow ready to shoot the cords at the other side of the tunnel, once the goblins are in position. Jonathan finishes up by “holding” a magic missile to hit any of the goblins who survive the rock-fall trap.
Needless to say, the battle went poorly for the goblins. It also went poorly for Jami’s new monk character, Lily-Ann, a halfling who is unfortunately about goblin sized. That explains why Beastly Tiger may have accidentally swung his hammer to smash Lily-Ann in the side of the head:
Deborah rolled a 1. We picked a fumble card, and it said “You attack your ally instead. This attack is a critical threat.” So Deborah rolled for her attack against Lily-Ann, and the die went off the table. She tried again, and rolled a 20. Murphy’s Law, I guess.
Even so, the heroes had little difficulty dealing with the goblins and some creepy-crawlies in the tunnels.
I needed a good hook to end with, and as we took a quick break, it came to me.
So maybe I took mix-and-match too far…
I’d been removing the old map tiles behind their characters in the mine, partly to save space, but more importantly, to set up the surprise.
They hit an intersection, determined a direction, and quickly came to a dead end with the section that has ore. They fought more beasties, then turned around to back-track…
And eventually they found themselves right back at the ore, even though they’d gone the opposite direction.
Deborah and Jonathan look at me funny. Jami asks, “Wait, what?” And then it starts to dawn on their faces…
Time and space are being shifted around in the mine. The path they took is now completely different. There is a monstrous creature in the cavern whose powerful twisted magic creates this effect, and they must find it and slay it in order to find their way out.
Jonathan’s eyes go wide, and he declares, “I like where this is going.”
Removing the tiles saved space and created a fun challenge.
The kids took off to play outside, since there was only a couple hours before sunset. But they made sure to ask, “Can we keep playing once we come back inside?”
Real life has been hectic and complicated, forcing me to adjust priorities and pay time and attention to some important things…
…Like family game night!
(Not really, but we did make time Monday night to get our game on for a bit.)
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I discussed her character. Jami likes the idea of Bethrynivere the military leader, but the character bores her. Likewise, Deborah loves Beastly Tiger, the dim-witted wall of muscle. But she doesn’t care so much about the panther companion that comes with a beastmaster ranger.
He’s crying because Beastly Tiger doesn’t want him tagging along anymore.
We looked into some other options while leveling up the kids’ characters.
Deborah selected a marauder ranger, which basically means combining various actions in order to capture a sense of “You’re the fastest character out there, rushing around the battlefield, charging into your enemies.” She plays to Beastly Tiger’s strengths (namely, his Strength stat) by chucking throwing hammers and then running up to smash faces with her larger war hammer.
We finished the character, and I couldn’t help but hear, “Stop! Hammer time!”
Meanwhile, Jami is trying to choose a class and race for a new character. She doesn’t want to duplicate any of the roles in the party, so a magic user is out. A rogue is out. A burly up-close fighter is out, because that’s basically what Beastly Tiger is no matter what the class says. On top of that, the party has no healer. Jami is convinced she should make a healer just because they need one, but that’s not what she wants to do.
I assure her not to worry about healing. I have a plan for an NPC of sorts, an angelic being that grants healing to the characters (in a limited fashion) when they get their butts handed to them in combat.
I don’t know how exactly I’d explain its presence yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something! I just don’t want Jami feeling forced to play something she’s not interested in. So she ignores the healing classes and looks at a few options.
And maybe it was excitement about the upcoming Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria… or maybe it was inspiration from Gollum’s total rage assault on Frodo at the end of Return of the King… or maybe none of the above. But Jami settled on the idea of a Monk, and she decided her monk had to be a Halfling.
Yeah. You heard of Frodo, now meet his cousin Judo.
One does not simply walk into Mordor… But you can Soaring Crane Kick your way in.
I kid, I kid. The monk’s name is Lily-Ann. The heroes met her in a session a while back where they fought that Dire Bear.
Once the bear was vanquished, the team gathered all available clues and figured that the thieving merchant they needed to find was probably holed up in the abandoned cathedral near the town. They set off to chase him down, and encountered an assassin who also sought him for reasons known only to her.
There was a brief tense moment–Beastly Tiger threatened to eat the assassin for dinner, and she responded coolly, “I think you’ll find my meat too tough for your tastes.” (I was proud of my off-the-cuff cheesy retort!)
Then the heroes realized the assassin shared the same short-term goal–stop the merchant, recover the gem–so they agreed to work together. They stepped into the cathedral and found the merchant holding the gemstone, protected by a large bubble of energy. Goblins surrounded the bubble, clawing and scraping to no effect. The merchant raised the gem, revealed his true demonic form, and exerted control over the goblins, turning them against the heroes.
That’s where we left off about two weeks ago.
While plotting the big fight, I thought about incorporating vampires into the plot line. I liked the idea of this merchant-devil guy gaining power from the blood that is drawn on the pre-made map. (Eevil Paizo, including little hooks and plot ideas in your simple map drawing!) But then he’d have to be a merchant-devil-vampire guy.
Devil vampires? Yessss…
Come to think of it, I had a campaign that was headed toward an arc about toppling a vampire clan. We had to stop due to various military deployments and such, and we never got to realize that portion of the story. Maybe these devil vampires could be a similar arc for family game night.
And the need to stop their evil would certainly explain the angelic being’s presence and interest in the heroes. Bonus!
So, with all this in mind, I set up the fight. I throw in a heap of goblin minions. In game terms, they’re the cannon fodder, the scrawny little losers that die as soon as they take damage. Minions give the players a sense that their characters are really powerful heroes, crushing all opposition.
They serve my purpose as well; the devil vampire has a healing buff that grows with the blood of each goblin slain.
On top of that, Lily-Ann and the assassin NPC both take bleed damage early in the fight. Bleeding sounds like something else that might give the devil vampire strength, so I describe the power he gains. Now they really want him to die.
Of course, with all the bleeding, they need a healer. So I tell them there is a flash of radiance at the back of the sanctuary, and an angelic being appears, hovering above the ground. She starts shooting beams of warm light at the heroes, and their wounds are healed. They want to know what her deal is, why she’s there, but they’re content to let that wait until after the fight.
The heroes smash their way through many goblins, while the assassin tries to distract the devilish merchant. The kids and Jami focus exclusively on the goblins, but the devil vampire remains completely protected behind a powerful shield. I set about 13 black token stones in an arc inside the cathedral, marking the boundary of the shield.
Deborah describes the various ways she wants Beastly Tiger to attack goblins… usually something like playing Leap Frog over a friend and then landing a crushing shot with the hammer. At some point, Jonathan decides that his not-sneaky-at-all Dragonborn Wizard is going to try to slip around the goblins by creeping through the shadows behind the pillars of the cathedral sanctuary. I can’t believe he wants to do this, but that’s the beauty of the game.
They can do whatever they want, or at least try.
As the kids and Jami beat up the goblins, Justin misses his attack by a very narrow margin. I describe how his crossbow bolt flies through a goblin wizard’s robe instead of hitting the goblin. And I think, “Well, if it flies through his robe, it’ll hit whatever is behind it… namely the shield.”
I describe the impact on the shield, and I replace a black token with a red one. This piques Jonathan’s interest.
On his next turn, he abandons his sneaking plan and decides to start attacking the shield directly. I end up replacing another token or two with red, and I explain how the shield flickers or wavers with each hit.
Suddenly no one cares about the goblins.
Like, not at all.
All of them are focused on the shield, to the extent that they’re ignoring the attacks of little goblins standing right next to them.
Justin has Clayface firing one crossbow bolt after another into the shield, trying to bring it down. The heroes are close to breaking through. One of the little pesky goblins runs up to harass or attack Clayface, and rolls a 1. I pick a card from the Critical Fumble deck.
The goblin ends up with something like, “Return to Sender.” It means the attack failed so bad that the opponent grabs and keeps the weapon the attacker just used. The goblin essentially runs up and hands Clayface his knife in the middle of the fight, while Clayface remains focused on the shield.
This is essentially what I picture and describe Clayface doing… no look, no distraction, just reaching up and blocking, grabbing the knife out of the goblin’s hand. (I also need to watch The Matrix again sometime soon.)
The goblins didn’t last long. And once the shield was brought down, the heroes were quick to pile on the devil vampire. Jami’s monk has a powerful move she can do once per fight, called Open the Gates of Battle. It does extra damage when you attack a target that has full health. Throughout the fight, we were discussing when she could or should use “Open the Gates.” She really really wanted to use it on the big devil vampire, and the moment finally arrived.
She says, “I wanna OPEN THE GATES!” Deborah and Jonathan cheer with her, “Yeah! Open the Gates! Open the Gates!”
Justin yells, “AND THEN CLOSE IT ON HIM!”
The heroes surround the devil vampire and beat on him with everything they’ve got. My assassin NPC manages to snatch the gemstone from the monster’s hands, and jumps away. (I’ve been trying to get her to grab it the whole time, but unfortunately I’ve been rolling a string of 3s and 4s.)
He responds by spraying acid and bile all around him a la Exorcist, pushing the heroes back. Then he rushes at the assassin and tries to get the gemstone back.
With everyone unloading their best attacks, the devil vampire is in a bad way. I get my turn, and he takes the gemstone back, raising it up into the air triumphantly, calling on its power to aid him and cackling in a mustache-twirling villain sort of way.
Justin declares, “I want to shoot him IN THE FACE!” and attacks with a crossbow shot that I know will kill the vampire. And it’s really late at this point, and we need to finish.
Always finish with a hook, if you can get away with it.
The devil vampire’s grin turns to open-mouthed confusion and he looks from the gem to the assassin at his feet. Something has gone wrong. “NOOOOO!” He screams at her. “WHAT HAVE YOU DO–”
I tell Jami and the kids, “The crossbow bolt flies into the creature’s mouth, killing him and triggering the explosive power of Clayface’s weapon. The devil vampire explodes, sending the assassin sliding across the ground. The goblins under the vampire’s control fall dead. Aaaaaand… we’re done. Time to get ready for bed.”
Deborah and Jonathan shout, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
I smile.
And the next day, Jonathan is already asking, “Can we play more tonight?”
They can’t wait to see what happens. Thinking of the silliness they come up with, I can’t wait to see what happens either.
It’s almost weekly game night with my wife and kids. Maybe I better post last week’s silliness.
Last week my wife and kids had their heroes continue a desperate attack against the goblins who took over their town. They had just finished clearing out the Town Hall when the last living goblin cried out, “Wait! I’ll tell you everything!”
So we began with that conversation.
I love Pathfinder’s goblins. They look totally nuts.
The fearful goblin explains the mysterious jewel the goblins are seeking: it’s a magical artifact that can exert control over the goblins in some way. The band of goblins are part of a larger organization led by the enigmatic Kal, who no one has ever seen and lived to describe. Kal has allowed the goblins to keep the jewel as a sign of trust in their relationship, and the goblins have pledged their support to Kal’s unknown goals.
Further details are all well above the head of the pathetic goblin captive, so the party stops questioning him.
However, if his story is true, the goblins aren’t motivated to ransack or destroy. The heroes begin wondering if it’s possible for them to help the goblins find the jewel and thus end the invasion on the town.
They bring the goblin captive into the next underground tunnel and head for the smithy to attempt diplomacy.
The goblin is sent up the stairs with the offer of coordinated effort.
His corpse is dropped down the stairs a moment later, followed by a fireball.
Burak, the half-orc sorceror I control, takes a crit and gets knocked 15 feet down the tunnel. I’m fine with this. As I’ve said before, I like finding ways to get him out of the way. That way, we can focus on my wife’s character and especially my kids’ characters as heroes.
Justin’s rogue, Clayface, is the first up the stairs. The party already knows there are four goblins near the stairs. But I whisper to Justin, informing him that there are four more goblins at the far end of the room. One of them is the purple goblin the heroes have been looking for.
I don’t put down any pieces because I don’t want the rest of the party to know yet. They’re downstairs. They can’t see these extra goblins.
But I do tell Justin, “Would Clayface want to tell his friends anything about what’s up here?”
Justin thinks a moment, and ‘Clayface’ informs his allies, “Guys, there are goblins up here.”
Deborah looks at me with eyes and a smirk that say, “Duh… we knew that.”
Jonathan calls out, “Uh… okay! Thanks…” in a sing-song response.
Jami’s character is next up the stairs and finds out about the added goblins. She laughs about Justin’s well-meaning attempt at a warning.
Soon everyone is upstairs from the underground tunnel into the smithy (well, everyone but Burak). The fight is pretty intense, and almost all the heroes are bloodied, D&D 4th Edition’s term for “half-dead.”
On his turn, Jonathan decides that Killbot is mad about this.
He starts asking about rules for biting.
“I want to walk up and bite the goblin on the nose.”
GOBLINS! OM NOM NOM
I try not to laugh. “Your character is pretty big and these guys are small. Look at that picture of your character. If you bite a goblin, you’re probably biting on his whole head.”
“Okay, even better.”
We roll for grappling, as Killbot tries to catch and hang onto a goblin. Then we roll an attack for the bite itself. It hits but doesn’t do too much damage. Jonathan doesn’t care. He just wants the goblins to know that the Dragonborn wizard is MAD.
Then it’s Justin’s turn.
He has a habit of getting excited that it’s his turn and immediately rolling dice to see “how well I do.” He knows most things in D&D require the roll of a 20-sided die.
He rolls a 20, a critical hit or automatic success.
As usual, I have to ask him, “But what are you trying to do?”
“Shoot my crossbow at something that’s not dead that’s not one of my friends in the game.”
Fair enough.
Killbot continues his toothy rampage. He grabs and bites the purple goblin on the head.
But the goblins score a lot of hits. Jonathan looks around and says, “I’m the only one in the party not bloodied yet.”
He says this as I calculate damage for an arrow that hits him and bloodies him.
The purple goblin and another goblin die in a scorching burst cast by Jonathan’s wizard.
The three remaining goblins get mad and start chanting, “Bursh nakh!”
Two of the three fall dead from Clayface’s crossbow bolts.
But then the wall shakes, splinters fly, and the last goblin rejoices.
Killbot grabs hold of the third goblin, and bites him. The goblin tries to break free but is held fast.
Then Justin decides he wants to shoot at it.
“Justin, your friend is holding the goblin… the goblin who is about to die.”
“Yup.”
“You remember, your magic crossbow causes explosions when it kills enemies.”
“Yup.”
“You might hit Killbot with your crossbow, or you might hit the goblin and make it explode. Are you sure about this?”
“Hmm…”
I try to throw him some rope.
“Let’s talk about delaying actions or holding actions. You can choose something you want to do, and say ‘if this or that happens, I will do this.’ So, maybe Beastly Tiger could stand next to a door and declare, ‘If an enemy comes through, I’m going to smash it in the face with my hammer and call it a hobo.’ Your character picks an action and waits for the right moment to do it. Does that make sense?”
“Yup.”
“And you guys are in the same room. So you can talk about this. You can tell Killbot, ‘Throw that goblin toward me.’ Then when he does, you can shoot it and make it explode.”
“Ok.”
“So… do you want to do that?”
“Nope.”
“…”
“I want to shoot it.”
“Right now?” “Yup.”
I give Killbot a break and allow him a saving throw to see if he can react in time. You roll a d20, and on 10 or better, you succeed… so you have just over a 50-50 shot at whatever it is. He saves, and throws the goblin away just as the crossbow bolt hits it.
With the goblins defeated, the heroes have a moment to catch their breath.
Then they learn what “Bursh nakh” means, as the Dire Bear the goblins summoned bursts into the room like the Kool-Aid man.
I think the bear might do some biting too.
OHHH YEAH!!
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
